Saturday, April 05, 2008

‘Muslim fury’ forces schools to withdraw gay fairytales

Cranmer has been awaiting this clash of minorities, which he prophesied a year ago. It appears that two primary schools in Bristol have withdrawn storybooks about same-sex relationships after objections from Muslim parents. These books were aimed at pupils as young as five.

One story, entitled ‘King & King’, concerns a prince who rejects three princesses only to marry one of their brothers. And the other, ‘And Tango Makes Three’, features two male penguins who fall in love at a New York zoo. A book and DVD entitled ‘That's a Family!’, which teaches children about different family set-ups including gay or lesbian parents, has also been withdrawn.

According to Bristol City Council, the schools had opted to use these books in order to ensure that they complied with the new Sexual Orientation Regulations which were enshrined in law a year ago. They are not concerned with promoting homosexuality, but with combating homophobia.

Setting aside that Cranmer is bemused that children as young as five are forced to study this sort of literature (do they even know what sexuality is, let alone the homo variety?), what is intriguing is that it has been a threatening campaign by a group of Muslim parents which has forced Bristol City Council to change its policy.

And it must have been threatening, because the decision was made ‘to enable the schools to operate safely after parents voiced their concerns at meetings’. Groups of 40 or 50 were gathered at each school demanding to speak to staff, which must have been somewhat intimidating. They were ‘upset at the lack of consultation over the use of the materials’.

Perhaps they should be - as should all responsible parents - and undoubtedly they are right to express their concern at the sheer inappropriateness of this material for children so young. But since when have state schools had to consult parents of any faith over the use of educational materials? And where will such a consultation end? Will it result in the banning of The Merchant of Venice for alleged anti-Semitism, or Othello for racism? Parents have the legal right to withdraw their children from sex education classes, religious education classes, and from the daily act of collective worship. The rest is compulsory, as proscribed by the National Curriculum. But parents do not have a veto over textbooks or other educational resources which are within the law. That is for the professional judgement of headteachers and school governors, sometimes in consultation with a local authority.

Would Bristol City Council have withdrawn these books if the complaints had been from Christian parents, or was it the threat of violence which persuaded them to change the policy?

Yet there is in this Daily Mail reporting the voice of moderate Islam. Farooq Siddique is a governor at one of the schools concerned, and was thereby in a position to get the policy changed. He said: “The agenda was to reduce homophobic bullying and all the parents said they were not against that side of it, but families were saying to us “our child is coming home and talking about same-sex relationships, when we haven't even talked about heterosexual relationships with them yet. They don't do sex education until Year Six and at least there you have got the option of withdrawing the children. But here you don't have that option apparently. You can't withdraw because it is no particular lesson they are used in."

He then added: "In Islam homosexual relationships are not acceptable, as they are not in Christianity and many other religions but the main issue is that they didn't bother to consult with parents. The issue should have been, how do we stop bullying in general, and teaching about homosexuality can be a part of that. This was completely one-sided. Homosexuality is not a priority to parents but academic achievement is. This just makes parents think 'What the heck is my child being taught at school?'."

He said the two schools were 60 to 70 per cent Muslim but pointed out that non-Muslim parents were among those who complained. It is curious therefore that The Daily Mail headline speaks of ‘Muslim fury’.

I see nothing gainful in teaching babies about sexual deviance. There is no argument what so ever here about who should or should not be dictating about text books in schools: its a question of common sense. It doesn't require a great deal of foresight to imagine the harm it will do to society in the future, these kids are tommorows adults. It's not about scoring points between different cultures and religions, and being allowed to be gay, gay rights. Be gay if you want, but keep the discusting side of these things to your self and leave the rest of us alone.

I would like to add more.. This morning on the TV I heard on the news that a top judge has said that families are in meltdown, and nobody is doing enough to address the problem. I saw a woman on TV in USA who wanted to be a man, so she had a sex change and became a man, He, She, or what ever the hell it is, is now pregnant, "women don't have babies people do". If this is the future, you can bloody keep it mate!

Hmmm. You don't have to be much of a seer to have foreseen this a year ago. I foresaw it 20 years ago, when my friend Dave was on a teacher training course at Eltham. Many of the female lecturers were hardcore feminists (natch) and they were quick to leap on any incorrectness by Dave or other male students.But they had real problems with Leroy the unreconstructed Rasta and his old fashioned views on the place of women.

While certainly not condoning any threatening or violent behaviour, I'm with the Muslims 100% on this one. Good on them. What one of the schools' governors, Farooq Siddique, was reported to have said made a lot of sense to me. I, too, would have been furious in their position.

What price common sense in the UK today - especially within our education system?

Your Grace will recall that we had a similar conversation along the same lines not so long ago regarding a news item where social workers refused to allow a Christian couple to foster a 10 year old because they refused to tell children in their care that a homosexual lifestyle was acceptable. You wondered at the time whether Derby Council would take the same stance with a Muslim couple wishing to foster.

If the example of the Bristol Educational Committee is anything to go by, they would have made smoke and retreated.

Do any of Your Grace's communicants reside in Bristol and can they use this precedent to have this type of literature withdrawn from all Bristol schools - or are the Muslims a special case?

I am bemused with the expression 'homophobia' in the context of young children. I suspect it is a mirage conjured up by the Homosexual Pressure Groups to establish new avenues for victimhood, establish new ways of recruiting to their persuasion, to obtain more public money, etc etc.

Homophobia as a word started to appear about 1999 I think - probably part of a deliberate campaign by homosexual rights activists - challenge its use wherever people say it and point out you can be opposed to homosexuality in principle without being afraid of it.

I have lived on this planet for 48 years. In that time I have never come across any cases of Homophobia serious or otherwise. Until I was at least 14 I had no idea what a homosexual even was.

I in common I am sure with the vast majority of straight men spent our energy chasing and competing for pussy. We had no inclination or time to worry about what other men where doing with other men.

When men can get a half reasonable looking women they usually stick with women. If not then they were always going to be gay anyway. Nothing they read or anyone tells them will make any difference IMO.

However if they cant get a women then all bets are off. A year in prison or at sea would sort out even the most hetro of men I am sure. Although I have no personal experience of doing either.

Books like these will not encourage boys in any notable amount to want to have sex with each other any more or any less then they did in the past. They will not make children any more sexually aware, because these things are either in you or they are not.

However this is not in anyway an argument for allowing any books about relationships sexual or otherwise being in a school. Especially one teaching under 11 year olds.

If they are subjected to any propaganda at all. The type that requires children to do as their parents tell them, is the only type that is good for children. This even if the parents are completely useless. Which they are not generally, however much social services and the state tries to make us believe they are.

These are matters that are the responsibility of parents. As are religious matters. The state should simply butt out.

Social engineering of this sort by the state is not just counterproductive in terms of human happiness and contentment. It is potentially EVIL in the extreme and the work of the Devil.

The purpose of this type of social engineering is not to promote more homosexuality in itself.

It is mainly to undermine the family unit for a variety of reasons.

To make ordinary people poorer or more poor then otherwise, and so more dependent on the state.

In order to tax two earners instead of one,to increase government revenue.

In order to boost the housing market, see above.

To help reduce the birth rate of intelligent people, to make the electorate more dependent and easer to brainwash and therefore control.

To help destroy the confidence of men in particular. Who are conditioned to lay down there lives for their wives and children. So would fight for liberty, if they still had a family to fight for.

To help keep women away from really looking after their children at all. To again increase dependency on the state.

To make radical change in general seem to be normal and maybe even desirable. When in fact it is deeply divisive and reduces human happiness at an ever increasing rate.

To increase no end the employment of these brainwashed female turkeys usually within the state, to provide socialism with more subservient, Christmas loving, voters.

In these goals social engineering has clearly been a radical success. However much it has been a complete and utter disaster for families and especially the children of them.

"Dr Elizabeth Atkinson, 48, of Sunderland University, is the director of the No Outsiders project, which uses books such as King & King in an effort to combat homophobic bullying. The two-year project - which is halfway through its first year - is being run in 14 primary schools in the South and the Midlands, with plans to expand it nationally.

So far, it has prompted such headlines as 'Four-year-olds will get gay fairy tales at school' and 'Pro-gay kids' books launched'. In one article, Stephen Green, director of the Christian Voice advocacy group says: "The arrogance of people like Elizabeth Atkinson, using children as guinea pigs is outrageous and thoroughly wicked."

Sitting in a cafe in Newcastle, Dr Atkinson says she doesn't mind that the project has attracted such vehement opposition - it's all part of the wider debate. "To be attacked is a sign of recognition that you are doing something to change the world and the job of education is to change something for the better," she says. "Fair enough if I'm attacked for changing the world for the better - so be it.

"We knew when we started this that the Christian groups wouldn't like it because they don't like homosexuals. It wasn't surprising."

The £568,000 research project has been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council."

your grace ultramone grumpys last paragraph sums up quite a bit for me , however mr anonymous 22:09 on the spending of the ecnomic and social re search council:

the gay community would like everyone to think that being gay is as normal as a cup of tea , to do this they must "cut across" any opposition or any educational input , with a revision .these childrens books of course are an antidote , or even an innoculation against "hate" of gays.

there are many dangers to this approach , not least the stories that the poor children are subjected to as being educational !!.

the absolutes of christianity are being legislated against and society being shredded in order to accomodate the equality , we have no confidence , we cannot oppose , we fear being wrong footed and caught out.

preaching hate is easy , but then again so is preaching social engineering that doesnt work. I am being asked to unbelieve by law , to fall on my own sword , to believe my faith is an antiquated and crude form of social engineering.

i wonder if the time is nearing when gay stories for five year olds is an antiquated form of social engineering , or when a social research fund actually turns out to be yet another form of gov propoganda

"We knew when we started this that the Christian groups wouldn't like it because they don't like homosexuals. It wasn't surprising."

With bigot zeal..

1. Chrisitians object to the homosexualist life-style because it is decadent and destructive.

2. The normalizers of homosexuality are the vanguard of a movement that seeks to abolish mankind itself.

2a. With scientists preparing to produce hideous human/animal hybrid embryos, the homopolitans have nothing with which to reasonably oppose this having spent the last 3 decades normalising the abuse of the reproductive function: Homosexuality, sex change, abortion, contraception, these are all perversions that are ending with the abolition of mankind.

And with these vile gene splicing experiments a line has been crossed that should not have been crossed, something monstrous has been done and I will not live to see the end of it in my lifetime.

His Grace makes many pertinent points here but the thing that resonates for me is that I have personal knowledge of the Bristol educational ethos.

To say that Bristol state schools are full of lefties is an understatement. The local teacher training school, under the aegis of UWE is no exception, and the majority of teaching teachers is done under a strict ideologically left liberal aetheistic regime.

Yes, it was a clash waiting to happen and of course, had this been Christians objecting they would probably have been banged up for hate crimes. I am not joking. Avon and Somerset Police have form when it comes to zealously applying political correctness.

The proof of the pudding in Bristol is in the eating. Bristol is overflowing with independent schools, from small Steiner influenced ones to Clifton College. There are lots in between and mine went to two of them. They did this because the local education authority failed to deal with their dyslexia - indeed they refused to recognise it as such, and yet, one of my children went from being bottom of the class at a state primary to being well above average as a reader. This transition coincided with a move to the private sector. Discipline problems in the independent sector are minimal. Parent cooperation is high - because they have a vested interest - and attainment is focused upon individual ability, not some mad race for spurious targets.

Bristol is a haven for the loony left. How else would you have gotten Dim Prawnarolo?

So what is the significance of this? I suppose it is that as we know, political correctness will eat itself. It is predicated upon finding scapegoats and elevating tyrannical minorities to positions that their moral and numerical status does not justify.

Perhaps our Muslim friends may prove to be the key to unravelling this descent into nihilism, to the benefit of all. If so, we may be faced to confront our own prejudices about Islam. That would be a novelty, wouldn't it?

About His Grace:

Archbishop Cranmer takes as his inspiration the words of Sir Humphrey Appleby: ‘It’s interesting,’ he observes, ‘that nowadays politicians want to talk about moral issues, and bishops want to talk politics.’ It is the fusion of the two in public life, and the necessity for a wider understanding of their complex symbiosis, which leads His Grace to write on these very sensitive issues.

Cranmer's Law:

"It hath been found by experience that no matter how decent, intelligent or thoughtful the reasoning of a conservative may be, as an argument with a liberal is advanced, the probability of being accused of ‘bigotry’, ‘hatred’ or ‘intolerance’ approaches 1 (100%).”

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